Philosophical Fiction as World Literature

Abstract

This article will examine Jean Paul Sartre's Nausea from the perspectives of philosophical fiction and world literature. Philosophical fiction is a specific kind of literature that insists on its absolute modernity. However, the literary aspects of philosophical fiction place it within its political and historical context, thus threatening this pretense to universality. Our examination of Nausea will show the internal tension between philosophy and fiction and how the interplay of both of those elements informed the structure of the novel. The formal, literary aspects help further the actual philosophical content that purports to be the central focus. The implications of that interplay will lead us to a new understanding of the inner logic of world literature.